On Recycling: Waste not, want not

We’re in the high season of eating here on the Cape, with more holidays coming up.

It’s so easy to both cook and eat more than most of us need, thus we end up wasting some perfectly good resources and expanding our waistlines too.

While the amount we eat is usually a choice, the amount we throw away is definitely a choice.

In the world of trash and recycling, we constantly promote the “3 Rs,” being reduction, reuse and recycling. Admittedly, we sometimes need to be focused on just recycling and how to handle the rest (either through combustion or landfilling), but recently there’s been a push to help residents think more about waste reduction.

And during these two-plus months of excess, it’s a great time to start the discussion and to start it with produce waste.

According to a 2016 article in The Atlantic “roughly 50 percent of all produce in the U.S. is thrown away –some 60 million tons (or $160 billion) worth of produce annually.” Those numbers, whether tons or dollars are simply staggering.

When you consider that the food we waste is often still very usable, isn’t it time that we started looking inward to understand why there is so much wastefulness and what can be done about it?

According to the article, we, as average grocery store shoppers, don’t usually see all of what’s wasted. But in many cases, we are the cause of that food never getting to the grocery store.

It appears that we have become very picky about our produce. If something is dented, blemished, misshapen, off-color, or “wonky looking” it won’t ever make it to our local produce department because it just won’t sell. Instead, it will be left in the fields, or at best, fed to farm animals, but more likely it will go to a landfill where it will produce methane gas, a very pervasive and harmful greenhouse gas.

While it would be hard to change policies that govern farming and food standards, such as expiration dates, there is something that we Cape Codders can do.

When cooking, are we making more food than we need and then tossing out the leftovers? Perhaps we carefully put the leftovers in the fridge with every intention of eating them. But we all know that moldy leftovers are very unappetizing and sometimes even dangerous.

We need to start doing better planning when purchasing, cooking and storing food. I hate to say it, but we need to go back to when there wasn’t such good access to the variety and quantity of produce like we have today in order to appreciate our bounty here on the Cape.

If you make extra food, maybe offer it to an elderly neighbor. If you’re one of those fabulous cooks who simply enjoy cooking, maybe you put your talents toward volunteering at any of the many shelters we have on the Cape.

Perhaps you could offer to teach a cooking class that demonstrates how to use those wonky looking fruits and veggies, proving once again that looks aren’t everything.

And if it really needs to be tossed, please aim for the compost bin either in your backyard or at your town transfer station.